15. 1950-1955 | The First Ad Valvas

It’s something we’re all familiar with at VU Amsterdam: the boxes with piles of the latest Ad Valvas, full of news, opinions and critical articles; and of course the corresponding website. The history of Ad Valvas dates back to 1953, when it first appeared as a news bulletin. Since then, the university magazine has had a turbulent history. The current editor-in-chief Marieke Schilp compares past and present.

The history of Ad Valvas, the independent journalistic platform of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, begins in 1953. The first issue appeared on 1 September of that year, with the subtitle ‘weekly official journal of the Civitas Academica of the Vrije Universiteit’. It was a folded A4 sheet, put together by a VU office worker and featuring mostly official announcements. Ad Valvas arose from the need for all bodies of the university community to have their announcements printed. The term ‘ad valvas’ (i.e. ‘on the doors’) was already familiar: it was used for the announcement board on the door of the university building. As it announced in the first issue, Ad Valvas aimed to perform a ‘modest but useful task’ for the university, which began growing rapidly in this period. It was sent to members of staff and to students.

In the first decade the journal was mostly filled with official announcements: by the Rector, the faculties, the student and study associations, and so on. In 1965, Ad Valvas was published for the first time on glossy white A4 paper and the journal received a slightly more generous format with room for articles with more content. But things would hardly get more exciting than an item about a professor’s anniversary, a new student pastor, or the buildings under construction at the Buitenveldert campus.

Things changed in the 1970s. Firstly in terms of appearance: Ad Valvas became a newspaper in tabloid format. But in terms of content, too: Ad Valvas became more independent and started presenting news ‘in a journalistically responsible way’, with space for opinions and aiming ‘if possible to elicit opinions on major issues’. In the 1970s, the journal reported on the many clashes and conflicts that occurred in the democratically organised university of the day. Moreover, the journal itself regularly became embroiled in the conflicts.

In 1973, following a difference of opinion with the university administration, the first editor in chief stepped down. A new editorial statute, drawn up on the initiative of the University Council, aimed to demarcate the responsibilities more clearly. From now on the role of Ad Valvas should be ‘to provide information and to record opinion’, doing so ‘generally without giving the editorial staff’s own opinions’, while nonetheless independent. As a result, the new editor in chief stayed on much longer than the previous one (sixteen years as opposed to less than a year). Although the following decades were quieter for the organisation, new challenges kept appearing.

 The first issue of Ad Valvas, weekly official journal of the Civitas Academica of VU Amsterdam, 1953.

Marieke Schilp

Just consider the technical developments since the first issue of the journal illustrated here. From hopping on your bike to take the closely typed black-and-white sheets to the printer to get them typeset (hurrah, full-colour became possible!) in those days, to sending a completed magazine straight from your PC to the printing house, in just a few minutes. And after a few more minutes the printed issue is ready.

We began building websites, using social media, chatting with the readers. The editors – these days all professional journalists – can be contacted quickly and personally, and the newspaper shed its formal nature many years ago. It’s no longer a newspaper either, by the way.

What might actually be more significant is the steadily growing competition. Not only online, where you can read and zap without end; all media have to compete for the attention of readers. What’s just as challenging, if not more so, is today’s competition within our own university. In addition to a digital revolution, we have had one at the business level. Educational institutions have increasingly organised themselves like businesses. Marketing and image building have become part of the core business. Universities have set up major communication departments.

In the past there were sometimes open disputes – at VU Amsterdam and elsewhere in the higher-education community – about the need and justification for an independent journalistic platform. Universities today, however, take a smarter approach to this. With considerable budgets and editorial teams they set up their own media: digital newsletters and magazines about science and academic activities, about the institution, about the teaching. These are delivered personally to the various target groups. In the face of such floods of publicity it isn’t easy, with a handful of journalists and together with the readers, to find out what’s really going on.

Because ultimately this is what remains our task, and it hasn’t changed over all these decades: to supply students and staff at the university with independent journalism. To inform, investigate and provide opinions. And to keep asking questions beyond the point where corporate reporting stops. That’s what motivates us. In essence, nothing has changed.

Marieke Schilp has been Editor-in-Chief of Ad Valvas since 2003.

 Ad Valvas’s evolution throughout the years.